7 Mistakes to Avoid When Furnishing Your Home

Furnishing and decorating a home is a major task, especially when you’re starting from scratch. While it’s easy to get blindsided by the expenses and caught up in the excitement of designing your space just the way you like it, there are certainly mistakes that could be made.

Keep reading for a list of commonly made mistakes when it comes to furnishing a home and how you can try to avoid them.

An Uncomfortable Mattress

Your bed, mattress, and linen are not items that should be purchased impulsively or without a lot of hard thought. Making the wrong decision here could cost you dearly, in financial terms, and in terms of your sleep and wellbeing. 

There are so many different types of mattresses and pillows to choose from, and each are suited to different types of people with different needs. Do your research thoroughly and try out different options. Make sure you know the difference between foam and springs and decide on the best size before committing. 

Tiny Shelves and Storage

Not investing in enough or the right size storage creates unnecessary clutter. Overstuffing shelves with random items and filling up your counters or coffee tables with display pieces, books, photographs, and other junk that doesn’t have a home is going to look messy and disorganized. 

We should all be working to reduce the clutter in our homes for the sake of our mental health and for living more simple, minimalistic lives. One step towards this is to declutter and eliminate the noise. Another step is to ensure that you have sufficient storage to pack away items that need to be kept but don’t need to be displayed. 

Too Much Large Furniture

Overstuffing your space is a little like overstuffing your shelves. Too many large items of furniture can look clumsy and will steal open space from your home, which is certainly not something you want to do. 

Large sofas and large coffee tables and large side tables and large footstools and… You get the idea. It can all be a bit too much and fill up a room unnecessarily, making it cramped and cluttered and uncomfortable to be in. Create balance in your furniture by alternating sizes – one large sofa from Rattan Furniture paired with two tub chairs can be a nice compromise to a full lounge suite. 

Low-Quality Furniture

Buying cheap furniture is almost always something you’ll regret. Major items like beds, sofas, coffee, and dining tables, will be purchased with the intention of lasting for years and years to come – something that won’t happen if you go for cheap, low-quality items.

Invest in these types of items, and they’ll pay off in the long run with comfort and longevity. 

Not Paying Attention to Lighting

If there’s one thing that can automatically kill the mood of a room, it’s poor lighting. Fortunately, this is something that can be handled and corrected quite easily, but it’s often simply neglected by homeowners. 

Changing up the bulbs or lampshades can create an entirely different atmosphere, and this is something to pay attention to. Capitalize on natural light in your brighter rooms, but use darker rooms to create a warm and cozy feeling. 

Over-Decorating

One hundred one tiny trinkets do not add up to a beautifully decorated home. Often, when it comes to interior design, less is more. Overfilling your space with trinkets can also contribute to a cluttered look, even if these items are meant to be decorative. 

Use the rule of threes in your décor and try to stick to a theme or color scheme – this will help you to whittle things down to your favorite or the most impactful pieces. A candle, a book, and a plant are a good combination of decorative items to display on a single shelf or coffee table – use this rule and apply it more widely by switching up items and finding balance in height and size.  

Not Using Artwork

A final mistake that many make is not hanging art on their walls. Many people choose to wait until they think a room is “finished” before finally adding artwork to the picture, but art can add meaning to a space that feels otherwise unfinished or empty. 

A single large, meaningful artwork above your bed or sofa can bring a personal touch to the space and liven everything up. Another great option is arranging a gallery wall to showcase your different styles and interest in a cluster of smaller pieces.